Community Banks Receive Reprieve from Long-Form Call Reports

The Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council (FFIEC) has approved the implementation of additional burden-reducing revisions to all three versions of the Call Report. These Call Report changes were proposed by the three federal banking agencies: the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Federal Reserve Board, and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, and approved by the FFIEC. This is part of an ongoing effort to ease reporting requirements and lessen reporting burden on small and large institutions.

These changes have been openly supported by the Independent Community Bankers of America and the American Bankers Association for the past year. They believe that creating a simple, but effective short-form call report will free up employees and other resources to better serve bank customers and meet the operational needs of the bank.

The following changes have become effective as of June 30, 2018:

Removal or consolidation of existing data items:

Schedule RC-A – Cash and Balances Due from Depository Institutions. All items removed.

Reductions in the reporting frequency for other data items:

Schedule RI-E (Explanations). Quarterly to annual reporting of components of other noninterest income/expense.

Schedules RC-C, Part I and RC-N (Loans and Past Due/Nonaccrual). Quarterly to semiannual reporting of information on purchased credit-impaired loans.

Schedule RC-C, Part I (Loans). Quarterly to semiannual reporting of 12 data items on loans acquired in business combinations.

Increase in certain reporting thresholds:

Schedule RI-E (Explanations). Report components of other noninterest income/expense only for amounts greater than $100,000 that exceed 7 percent of total.

Schedule RC-T (Fiduciary and Related Services). Increase of fiduciary asset threshold, for exemption of reporting income information, from $100 million or less to $250 million or less; information on collective investment funds completed by banks with market value of $1 billion or more in such funds.

Schedule RC-B (Securities). 52 data items on asset-backed securities and structured financial products only reported by institutions with $10 billion or more in total assets.

The changes enacted by the FFIEC should save the time of community bank employees and paper.